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OT: seeking some computer help

 
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The Robman
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Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:45 pm    Post subject: OT: seeking some computer help Reply with quote

My son's laptop is playing up and I am at a loss as to how to fix it. He's started getting the "black screen of death" with an active cursor. After doing lots of net searching on the subject, I saw some posts suggesting to disable the display adapter, so I rebooted in safe mode (which works, btw) and disabled the display adapter and then the computer can boot up normally (with crappy video of course). I uninstalled and re-installed the drivers but every time we reboot it just stops at the black screen and goes no further.

I pulled the hard-drive and swapped it with an identical laptop and got the same problem when the HD was in the other laptop. Plus, I put the other HD in his laptop and it started up just fine, which seems to confirm that it's a software problem rather than a hardware problem.

I'm getting pretty close to backing up his files and then cloning the drive from the working machine, but I'd really prefer to fix the problem without having to do that if possible. So if anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the technical info:
Windows 7 64-bit
Dell Inspiron 15 M5030
Display adapter: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250
Dell service tag: DJL20N1

Update: disabling the display adapter is no longer sufficient to get the PC to boot, safe mode is the only way now.
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Rob
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vickyg2003
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Joined: 20 Mar 2004
Posts: 7073
Location: Florida

                    
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do your restore points still work?
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The Robman
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Joined: 01 Aug 2003
Posts: 21211
Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

He doesn't have any backup points that I can restore back to
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Rob
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underquark
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Joined: 20 Jun 2005
Posts: 874
Location: UK

                    
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it will boot from USB or CD (most modern laptops will, but you might need to enter the BIOS to enable this; you might need to press F2 or F10 or F12 or whatever at startup) then you can try booting from a "Live CD" of another operating system. This will at least give you an idea as to whether the hardware is working properly or not.

I'd try Puppy Linux which is designed to run from a USB stick and is pretty fantastic actually (I run it on my HP T5130 fanless, diskless PC for video streaming).

I would also consider ubuntu - despite several detractors over its recent interface changes, it's a stable OS and comes with startup options including MemTest that can check if RAM faults might be the problem.

Having just read your post carefully, however, it really does sound like the HD or Windows is to blame. So, either re-install Windows or try a Linux OS and see if he likes it instead. One of the few things I kept Windows for was for JP1-ing but now that I have a USB FTDI cable 1.2 interface and RM/IR runs fine in ubuntu I only use Windows if I'm interfacing to my old URC7562 via parallel port on an old PC. My kids fight over who gets to use the PC running ubuntu 9.04 or the one running Windows XP - both are old PC's but they much prefer the ubuntu one as it's more responsive.
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The Robman
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Location: Chicago, IL

                    
PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I put a different HD in there, it booted up just fine, and when I put his HD in another laptop, it got the same problem.

And given the fact that I can boot up in Safe Mode, leads me to believe the HD hasn't failed, which just leaves a software problem.
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